Faux Bois In Concrete

Sunday, June 24, 2007

Faux Bois.Reviving a Lost Art.Please note that all of the items shown here, including the image at the top of the page, were hand sculpted in cement by Donald R. Tucker. Click any of the images below for a larger view

NOTE: The Course Supplement developed for these classes is now available on Amazon and through Barnes & Noble.The title is "An Introduction to Sculpting Ferrocement Faux Bois" by Donald R. Tucker

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October 4th, 2013

I
just returned from studying historical Faux Bois & Rocaille in
France. You can read about the findings and discoveries made during
this 33-day trip on the Discussion Forum of my craft related website
TheGardenArtForum.Com. The link to that thread is below:A Faux Bois & Rocaille Pilgrimage

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Maps & Information! Faux Bois & El Trabajo Rustico in San Antonio, TexasI am very pleased to announce that the good folks at the San Antonio Conservation Society have just given me authorization to publish two of the marvelous documents they and the others below worked very hard to assemble regarding Faux Bois & Trabajo Rustico in San Antonio. They were originally presented during the world's first public symposium on the subjects at The Southwest School of Art. One is a brief treatise on the subject along with some background on Master Craftsman Dionicio Rodriguez, and the other is a first-of-its'-kind map showing the precise locations of many of this City's greatest works in these art forms by Dionicio as well as Masters Maximo & Carlos Cortes. If you ever plan on visiting this charming city, please, do take the map along and enjoy some of this town's most celebrated and beloved works. Many of these sites are now on the prestigious National Register of Historic Places and are utterly unique to this craft and the Master Craftsmen who created them.

Many thanks to the following who made these documents possible:University of Texas at San Antonio Department of Art and Art HistoryThe Southwest School of Art King William Association, and...The San Antonio Conservation Society
_______________________________________________________ Work featured in "Woodland Style".A wonderful book by Marlene Hurley MarshallClick the cover for a larger pic & more info. It really is a gorgeous book and I was honored to be an invited artist.

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Faux Bois (French for "False Wood")

This school of art goes back as far as art itself. From our very beginnings, artists have been fascinated with the infinite variety of shapes, forms and textures that Mother Nature expresses in trees and their wood. And while the French are indeed to be credited with giving this art a name, there are examples to be found that far predate the existence of France as a nation.

The modern schools of this art today encompass two principle branches. One employed by highly skilled wood finishers that involves itself with making "lesser" woods such as pine, have the appearance of a "finer" or more exotic wood. The other branch creates three dimensional representations of wood and wooden objects by applying various cement-based mixtures onto a steel framework or "armature", and sculpting it to mimic the real material.

The subject of this brief essay is the three dimensional variety,also known as Ferrocement Faux Bois.

Ferrocement Faux Bois is a very popular and much sought after category among serious antique collectors. One of the most notable of whom is Martha Stewart, who collects antique as well as modern works executed by the very few remaining artisans still practicing this craft. Sadly, there are only a handful of artisans alive today who are capable of executing Faux Bois at the masterwork level.

The most familiar works are those imported from Europe by antique dealers specializing in garden art. Typically they have what I refer to as a "French" finish composed of a gray, lightly sanded mortar mixture of Portland cement and sand. What few people today, including many collectors, do not realize, is that the vast majority of these pieces were at one time painted. Often quite garishly. Thankfully, nearly all of the paint has succumbed to the nature of the concrete and fallen off, leaving only a faded and aged patina. Many of these works are crude. Others more convincing in their detail. Most of the better pieces were constructed from about 1880 to WWII, but there were a few very capable craftsmen still producing an utterly amazing body of work well into the 1950's...right here in America.

Today, the very best of those major works rightfully represent an entire category on the National Register of Historic Places. And there is a serious movement taking place to add many more and restore them to the former glory that as much as a century of neglect has all but erased in many cases.

How it is Created

The process of creating these works is at once complex, technically demanding and extraordinarily labor intensive. It involves first building a steel framework (referred to by sculptors as an "armature"), securing and forming metal mesh known as "lath", then building up multiple layers of concrete, mortar and often pure cement paste. All the while, shaping, sculpting and detailing the material as it hardens. Once the process of adding cement-based media begins...there is no stopping. The material will not wait and absolutely must be worked from beginning to end. Complex and highly detailed works can often require an artist to work non-stop for 12 to 24 hours to achieve many specific effects. Little wonder it is less than popular with today's generation of artists. But there are rewards for the few who invest themselves in this demanding art, as well as the buyers of these rare works. Because the time and effort put into a quality piece is also reflected in its' longevity. Properly formulated and skillfully placed modern cement formulations can endure exposure to the elements for an estimated fifty-thousand years. How's that for "heirloom".

And while works of this calibre are obviously rare and understandably expensive, they can still be found or commissioned by a properly skilled sculptor.

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Public Works Faux Bois Commission

I am honored to have had a fairly large scale commission approved by The Baytown Nature Center in Baytown, Texas. It is a combination of site signage and donor/volunteer recognition plaque mount. Designed to honor the look and style of the early National Park signage constructed in the 1930's by the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps), it consists of a horizontal, 12' long, 16" diameter log supported by two 14" diameter vertical logs.

Picture a hitchin' rail for Hippos.

I estimate the finished weight at around 4,000 pounds of welded steel and sculpted cement media. As with all my work, the entire piece was hand fabricated and sculpted with no molds involved. The most daunting aspect of this piece involved carving the name into the front face of the horizontal log. The formal name of the area this work will designate is..."CHILDREN'S NATURE DISCOVERY AREA". At a 6" letter height, the name stretches to well over 100 inches in length and is carved about 3/4's of an inch deep. It made for a lot of very exacting work that absolutely had to be accomplished in a single pass before the media set solid.

Below is the very first concept sketch. At this stage, note that the name I was given to work with did not include "NATURE" and that the piece is only ten-feet long. The addition of that single word complicated the structural engineering, required extending the overall length to the current twelve-feet and added another 450 pounds.

December 31, 2008: The project below was installed on New Year's Eve Day of 2008. The links above show the processes required to construct the work shown below.

_______________________________________To Learn More

To learn more, visit the site below. It is dedicated to teaching and sharing many of the "lost" techniques involved in sculpting Ferrocement Faux Bois as well as working with a host of other media for home, garden and interior use. It's all about creating and having fun doing it.

DonaldTucker is the only artisan ever to share and teach the techniques, processes and "secret" formulations of advanced Faux Bois sculpting.These intensive & in depth courses are presented in conjunction with host organizations including highly regarded art schools and professional teaching artist's studios. For more information, see the link at the bottom of the page.

The 2008 "Introduction to Sculpting Ferrocement Faux Bois" class in Montrose, Colorado was a tremendous success and had the largest turnout ever hosted by The Ferrocement Educational Network (FEN). Special thanks goes out to Paul Sarnstrom for all the work he does year round to make such classes possible. Below is a photo of the Class of '08 with the various Faux Bois projects they completed during the week. Great job folks! Thank you all.

The Class of 2010 at Sherri Warner Hunter's wonderful studio in beautiful Bell Buckle, Tennessee. Great bunch of folks who crafted some very impressive work!

The Class of 2011 at the grand old Southwest School of Art in San Antonio, Texas produced some genuinely wonderful & inspiring work.

What a great bunch of talented folks! And for the third year in a row, a student came all the from Oz (Australia) to take a class at Sherri's! Thank you all for making teaching such a rewarding pleasure.